After 38 years of being the public face and voice of the Front d’action populaire en réamenagement urbain (infinitely better known as FRAPRU), François Saillant has decided to retire. FRAPRU’s raison d’etre is simple — to ensure that decent, affordable housing is available to anyone who needs it, and while it’s unlikely its goal will be met anytime soon, Saillant tends to look back at the past four decades as a glass half full rather than half empty. He has lost track of how many demonstrations he’s staged or participated in, he’s been arrested three times for protesting against various housing policies (or lack of them) and believes that urban development doesn’t have to involve the elimination of communities and neighbourhoods. The Montreal Gazette spoke with Saillant moments after he announced his retirement. This is what he said:

Q: Did you keep count of how many demonstrations you were involved in?

A: Once with FRAPRU and two times during the Overdale events (when a group squatted in a privately owned home in 2001 to protest against a lack of affordable housing) … that was a tough one, more than 100 apartments and rooms were demolished. For many households, their lives were demolished. It was a living community and it was destroyed. And it took 20 years to build something on the site.

Q: Thirty-eight years with the same cause. Why stay so long?

A: It was important for me. But also because I enjoyed the job. I felt I was doing something that was important for society. … Housing is at the centre of the lives of individuals and communities.

Q: But after nearly 40 years, you still feel dangers are out there when it comes to people trying to find decent, affordable housing. Has your work been a success or a failure?

A: What was a big victory for me is every social housing unit that’s been built in Montreal and Quebec. It’s an improvement in the situation for a lot of families … when you’re building social housing, you’re building communities, too.

Q: You mentioned that gentrification is a big problem when it comes to increasing the amount of affordable housing.

A: It’s still a big problem, it’s dangerous for poor tenants … and even poorer landlords are endangered by it. It’s not a problem that there have been improvements in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, or in St- Henri. The problem is that people in those neighbourhoods have a right to live in their apartments and have a right to live in their neighbourhoods and deal with businesses they can afford, find merchandise and restaurants they can afford, and these people have a right to still be able to live in downtown Montreal.

Q: There are people who will listen to this interview and say they pay their mortgages and their taxes and ask why they should care about social housing. Why should they care?

A: I’d tell these people that they don’t know what will happen in life. Right now they have their property, pay their mortgage, and it’s all right for them. But you don’t know when you might lose your job, you don’t know whether you’ll separate or divorce, you don’t know what might happen with your health. And then you might need a spot in social housing. Social housing is a collective insurance policy that we give ourselves. We don’t know when we might have to use that insurance. But there is a danger that you might need it, there’s a danger that your children might need it.

Q: How do you stay motivated after 38 years?

A: The anger, I think. The revolt against what’s happened in our society and especially what’s happened with rights – the right to housing, but also other social rights. Those rights are in danger right now and we’re living in a rich society. How can we accept that there’s poverty, there’s homelessness, there’s housing problems in a rich society? For me, it’s unacceptable. There’s also the fact that I enjoyed the job and I was able to work with great people. … I’m retiring from the job, but I’m not retiring from activism.

Q: So what’s next?

A: I’ll continue to be an activist. But I want to take more time for me and my wife. I’m open to offers, but not a full time job.

Q: Politics? You’ve run before…

A: I never say never, but right now I don’t have the will to be a candidate.

This interview has been edited for length. To hear our entire conversation with François Saillant, listen to our podcast by clicking on the player icon below.

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